Hi all! As you can probably tell since I'm posting in the Newbies forum, I'm new here on TBMF. Little about myself - got started playing RPG's back in the '80's when my babysitter introduced me to DnD, and played that for many a year, as well as other pen and paper RPG's - Deadlands, CP2020, Champions, Rifts, just to name a few. Got into BattleTech in high school in the early '90's, which I enjoyed for a long time but got completely out of about 5 or 6 years ago. Had some friends introduce me to Games Workshop and specifically WH40K at my second college in the late '90's. Dabbled in that with a Dark Angels army and a small foray into WFB with Chaos, before changing schools and losing all contact with that group, and selling off all my models in frustration.

About 3 years ago, friends re-introduced me to 40K just long enough for me to get a Tau army, play a few games, get disgusted with the rules (balanced? right...) and leave it for WFB. Knowing I was going to be on the short-end of the rules stick unless I went cheese (which is not fun nor palatable), I chose Skaven (half the time they blow THEMSELVES up, how fun is that? very), joined the Underempire board, and played about 3 games before the locals let their Gaming ADD slip and switched systems on me. No, seriously, they've switched systems like clockwork every two to three months, and have gone through in the last year and a half: WH40K, WFB, Warlord (Reaper Games), DnD4e, WH40K RPG (Dark Heresy? I forget), World of Warcraft, and are finally back onto WH40K just this month.

Sometime about 6 months ago, I remembered that GW had put out a small squad system for 40K (Necromunda) which I had dabbled with about 5 years prior in previous gaming group, and went to see if they had done something similar to it for WFB, which, oddly enough, they had - Mordheim! I was kicking myself when I found it, too, as the group had just gotten off their Warlord kick, which they had switched to for its lower model count (read: inexpensive) and squad tactics. If I had known of Mordheim at the time, I could have a) saved everyone the money by getting them onto this (they already had WFB armies) and b) would have a better time now of bringing them back into it. I followed them from 40K to WFB, and then slightly into Warlord by proxying everything with similar models from GW (I've got a Black Skull Pass box set, and currently using the dwarf and goblin figures as slaves for my Skaven horde... got more for my $$$ than just buying the hardbound book - rules, measuring sticks, dice, templates, AND two armies that I can steal slaves out of, all for the same price as the main rulebook), but stopped there as the wife and I were expecting a kid (she's almost 4 months old, now, and a feisty little girl) and my GADD is not that bad. I, unlike my friends, like to cycle about 2 or 3 games in a rotation, as my finances are not bottomless and I like to spend time really learning the ins & outs of a system.

So, with Mordheim in the back of my brain, I've kept an eye out for Mordheim stuff and lucked out on a sweet deal on one of the paintball boards I frequent (I have a lot of hobbies) about a month ago - the base set (never touched), with Blood on the Streets expansion (only one building constructed, all the rest untouched), a bunch of pewter furniture bits (window casings, tables, benches, treasure chests, and coffin lids, with other little decorational bits), a box of plastic Empire halbediers, and other random pewter figures, all for about $75 shipped. I snatched it up, giggled maniacally over it when I finally got enough time to sit down and sort through it, and have been putting together buildings this past weekend. I've got all of them together except for one of the base set buildings, but should have that one done by this weekend. I've also picked up a Pegasus Hobbies Gothic Ruins set, which was fairly inexpensive, and though it is 28mm instead of 25mm, will work and gives my growing collection a bit of variety.

Have I played any games yet? Um, not as such. While the local group suffers from GADD and has to switch games often, whenever they are on a game, they are ON A GAME. PERIOD. I'm hoping that when I show up with pretty, pretty buildings, and throw a gauntlet down to play a game (which I'll provide them a unit - the base set does come with Skaven and Empire models, so I'm making a unit out of each) that someone will pick it up and let me set the addiction. Remember, the first taste is always free. *evil grin*

There you have it, my Mordheim background in a nutshell. I hope to get my group interested in the game so I have someone to play with, and also get more work on my Skaven WFB army and Mordheim terrain in the downtimes. Looking forward to perusing the boards here more and getting inspiration.

Sounds like you hang out with Guys who have VERY LIMITED attention spans. That not withstanding WELCOME ABOARD, Pilgrim!

Have a LONG [as in on-going ] & MERRY stay here on the But Eternally Inspiring Mordheim Forum of St. Thomas the Admin. Light of Sigmar & Patron Saint of Chocolate Freaks. Beware the attacks of the Psycho Photo Loonies from HELL & HAVE FUN!

_________________"I'd NEVER join a club that would have me as a member." Groucho Marx

Got the last building of the base set complete. The sad thing is, you can really tell they weren't worried about QC'ing their product and fully meant it when they "suggested" you prefit all the buildings together and then make adjustments before final gluing and assembly. *shrug* Oh well, I was trying to brainstorm last night (whilst the daughter was fussing and my hands were too occupied to assemble cardstock and plastic into buildings) about what kind of layouts I'd make for my terrain, and I now think that replacing every piece I already have (minus the plastic gothic ruins set from Pegasus Hobbies) would be a good starting point. The salvage in the plastic bits (windows, corner joins, beams, etc) will fuel further construction for many projects to come.

First things first, though: clear off a piece of flat furniture and set up what I do have (with some added minis from my WFB army for flavor) and take a good glamour shot of the collection. I'll try to get that out before the weekend.

Thanks again for the warm (and slightly terrifying... yes, I'm looking at you, DeafNala - Psycho Photo Loonies from Hell? WTF?!) welcome and already drooling over all the other projects I'm seeing around here.

Thanks again for the warm (and slightly terrifying... yes, I'm looking at you, DeafNala - Psycho Photo Loonies from Hell? WTF?!) welcome and already drooling over all the other projects I'm seeing around here.

See, Nala, now you are terrifying our new members again! Now, where were the Dried Frog Pills..?

Usagi, don't worry, we will soon have him chained up under Duce's bed so he can paint for him Welcome to the Forum, by the way!

I was affectionately poking fun at our wild eyed Fellow Forumites whose first statement in a welcome is a request for pics. However, being a Crazy Old Man CAN be pretty scary at times...especially for moi.

_________________"I'd NEVER join a club that would have me as a member." Groucho Marx

I do feel the need to set up what I have and take pics of it to share, but most of tonight will be spent wrestling one of my vehicles 30 miles down the highway to my favorite repair shop before it utterly shoots craps. High possibility it will do it on the way, anyway, but that's what AAA memberships are for. And after that, I have to sit down and get a bag of paintball gear ready to go, as I'm flinging paint tomorrow. Like I said, I have a lot of hobbies. Hopefully tomorrow night or Sunday I'll find the time for it.

I would strongly urge you to pursue your idea of scrapping the included terrain and reusing the plastic bits to make new pieces. One of my favorite pieces uses the plastic corner pieces and windows from the boxed set, but the layout and construction materials (foamboard) differ.

Identity - I've seen that a lot here and on Terragenesis, the re-using of the plastic sprue bits in amongst both foamboard and cardstock. I've found fairly cheap plasticard on eBay (bought a pack to make my own movement trays for WFB), and I may look into using that for walls and floors as it would be fairly lightweight and thin, yet still very sturdy. And it's easy to manipulate. The more I think about that, the better I like it. Have to go see my source and see if it's as cheap as I remember it.

DeafNala - *hmmm* Well, first off, when we played Warlord, the guys I was playing with made some houserules that we used, so I never played the rules as they were meant to be played. The biggest change is we did away with the "grunts have to stick together" rule, which tosses out a lot of special abilities for some characters, and makes it unbalanced in places. Otherwise it was okay, and I do have to admit that the Reaper models are awesome. If you (or anyone else here, for that matter) are looking for good Japanese samurai models for BTB, check out the Mercenary army line for Warlord by Reaper. Other than that, it's just Warhammer in miniature with all metal mini's. You would hardly see a Skaven horde army (I can field over 300 models in Clanrats and Slaves alone, not counting all the other types, and that's not even really a high model count for Skaven) in Warlord, but it is a fairly detailed system. If you want to take a look, check out the Reaper forums and browse through there - Reaper listens to the community and tries to fix problems as often as feasible. Their rulebook was released a few years back, but every year they release an updated errata/army book that fixes everyone all at once. This past year's update (Rage Chronicles 2008) is 132 pages long.

Thanks for the info. Reaper has been one of my favorite mini makers for quite some time. I was curious how their game played.

I'm around the 300 mini mark with my Night Goblin "army" also. Looking at it from the perspective of an ex-historical gamer where an army isn't really a proper size until it tops 1,000 minis, it just seems like a largish skirmish force. Mordheim sized forces ARE much more in line with my painting/modeling ideas, not to mention finances.

_________________"I'd NEVER join a club that would have me as a member." Groucho Marx

DeafNala - yeah, Reaper gets away from huge armies by raising the points costs for everything. For example, a Clanrat in Warhammer runs you 5 points, wherein Warlord that same model would run you 15 to 30 points. The points costs run really high, I think so they can more finely-tune the points cost for any given model. Games run anywhere from 500 points to 5,000 points (5.000 for our European readers) but even at 5K, the model count is barely over a hundred, even for the horde-y army lists. I have anywhere from 5K to 10K worth of Skaven models (depending mostly on magic items and weapon loadouts), if I fielded everything at once, and easily in the neighborhood of 500 individual models.

Part of the reason I'm excited about Mordheim is that my group, while having enough extra $$$ to spend on new systems, never stays in one long enough to really build up large armies, so I'm about the only one able to field over 2K points for WFB. MH is small enough they can buy a box of whoever they're playing (if they don't just want to use models from their WFB army) and that should tide them over for quite a few months of play.

Mordheimer - Love your resource site (if that is indeed your doing), and DN does indeed worry me. Not so much scare me, as I am in the Army and have already had one tour through Iraq. But worried? Definitely.

PFT - I know, their Lupine/Koborlas models are excellent. Unfortunately, the Warlord rules for Koborlas have 14 distinct units, but only 8 of them have corresponding models in Reaper's line. If they ever finish them, I'll definitely be picking up a complete army of them, just because they're so cool looking.